![Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://uknews.evprotec.com/michael-parkinson-gave-me-my-own-meg-ryan-moment/&media=https://uknews.evprotec.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/1_Parkinson-TV-television-chat-show.jpg&description=Chief Feature Writer Emily Retter recalls her fraught experience of meeting the late Sir Michael Parkinson for a chat reminiscent of his infamous Meg Ryan interview You get nervous before you interview an interviewer, and the day I called Parky was naturally the pinnacle of stage fright. Quite rightly. He was in a foul mood. No mercy was shown. "We're not going to talk about this, I've answered all these questions before," he barked in response to my boring 'warm up act' - a look back at his best bits, the likes of his great moments with Muhammad Ali et al. Best bits binned, we moved onto his health, living with the after effects of prostate cancer, recovering from a back injury… old age…mortality (blimey, I was brave, possibly stupid). He demanded to know why we were being so bloody morbid. Quite rightly. The first half of that chat was no doubt my own Meg Ryan moment (she famously refused to answer his questions when he got her on the couch). But Parky knew he was being a curmudgeon - or a 'bad tempered oaf', as he dubbed himself when describing what his adored wife Mary had to put up with. He knew himself through and through. And he was the first to pull himself up. In the end he confided he had the most awful cold. "I expect that's my fault, too?" I laughed. And - thank god - he laughed too. Loudly. That twinkle in the eye, and deadpan Yorkshire humour, was never far from the surface. We had a decent chat after that, although with one proviso: he only wanted to talk about the future. Work, at that time a new project with his son, Mike, for whom he was clearly bursting with pride, was his preferred subject. "What we need to talk about now is what we're going to do in the future, if you don't mind," he told me. It was fair enough. Parky wasn't a man to dwell, to rest on his ego and swell in the after glow of a lauded career. He was a proud man and took great pride in his profession, in the present, not the past tense. Although Emu could remain firmly in the past.){kind=link}
Chief Feature Writer Emily Retter recalls her fraught experience of meeting the late Sir Michael Parkinson for a chat reminiscent of his infamous Meg Ryan interview
You get nervous before you interview an interviewer, and the day I called Parky was naturally the pinnacle of stage fright.
Quite rightly. He was in a foul mood. No mercy was shown.
“We’re not going to talk about this, I’ve answered all these questions before,” he barked in response to my boring ‘warm up act’ – a look back at his best bits, the likes of his great moments with Muhammad Ali et al.
Best bits binned, we moved onto his health, living with the after effects of prostate cancer, recovering from a back injury⦠old ageâ¦mortality (blimey, I was brave, possibly stupid). He demanded to know why we were being so bloody morbid. Quite rightly.